


Human Again

by aralias



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005), Life on Mars (UK)
Genre: Christmas, Crossover, Fobwatch, Gen, Sam Tyler is the Master
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-20
Updated: 2011-04-20
Packaged: 2017-10-18 10:35:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/188055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aralias/pseuds/aralias
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life on Mars andDoctor Who crossover/Sam Tyler is the Master/AU for LotTL/Christmas fic. Sam finds a garishly wrapped box with an iPod in it outside his door on Christmas morning, 1973. What's especially mad is that the iPod isn't even his - it's filled with rubbish like The Scissor Sisters and McFly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Human Again

Approximately five months after and thirty-three years before throwing himself off the top of Manchester police station, DI Sam Tyler opens the door of his flat and steps on a small square package. The package is wrapped in shiny Christmas paper, which leads him to believe that it’s a present of some sort, but there’s no telling exactly what his crazy brain has decided to spring on him this time. It doesn’t explode, which is a good sign. On the other hand there is the less than reassuring tag, which Sam turns over with the tip of his left boot. It reads _Sorry._

By now, Sam is pretty sure he’s dead and this, this whole 1973 _thing_ , is some weird branch of personal heaven generated by his subconscious. From this, he’s deduced that his subconscious hates him and thinks he needs to be punched repeatedly in the face. It’s strange, but, strangely, it does make sense. Sort of. It’s consistently strange, at the very least. 1973 is about to become 1974. Annie stays the night once a week, and Sam has bought her a bracelet he’s not sure she’ll like for Christmas. He has a large bruise on his left cheek and Gene has a matching black eye. The sounds of the hospital have completely disappeared and, most of the time, he forgets that it’s not real.

He gives the potential Christmas present another tentative prod with his foot. Only a month ago, Ray thought it’d be a laugh to break into Sam’s flat and hide a live racoon in the wardrobe and it would be just like Ray to try the same trick twice. The man has all the imagination of a spatula.

When nothing springs out to savage him, Sam picks up the slightly dented present and unwraps the gaudy paper. Inside the box is a card and something white and shiny that won’t be invented for another thirty years.

“Fantastic,” Sam mutters, removing the iPod from its box. “Just what I need: more proof that I’m _mad_.” He shouts, “I can’t even use it!” at no one in particular, which is something he hasn’t done since he decided to stay here. There is no reason an iPod should have appeared outside his flat in 1973, even this fake 1973, and it’s a bit annoying, actually. Just when it was all working out all right.

The accompanying card doesn’t shed much light on the situation, and, at first, it doesn’t even look like words. There are just a lot of circles and lines, like someone’s spent the evening playing with a Spirograph. He blinks hard (an old trick from the days of the test card girl) and in this split second the characters reform into what is obviously English and the same handwriting on the tag. _I’ve fixed it so the battery won’t run out. Happy Christmas._

Sam shakes his head, and laughs slightly under his breath. “Flash bastard,” he says without thinking about it. He pockets the anachronistic device, lobs the box back into the flat, and locks the door.

It’s only once he’s sitting at his desk flicking through the collection of albums, shielded by a large stack of reports that nobody wants to deal with, that he realises just how mad he really is. The music on the iPod isn’t his. All right, so there’s some good stuff that isn’t around now: some Pulp, a couple of Queen albums, Guns and Roses Greatest Hits etc, but the good stuff is interspersed with Fall Out Boy, McFly and, worst of all, four Scissor Sisters albums. When the band had first appeared, he’d almost liked them in a light pop-rock sort of way, but no one should ever, _ever_ , cover ‘Comfortably Numb’. They’d lost him forever when they did that and there’s no way he would have bought four albums. Since when did they have four albums anyway? They’d released _one_ , before his car accident. Two at the very most, but definitely not four, which means either he’s not dead and something else really weird is going on, or he’s just invented two albums for a band he doesn’t even like. Meanwhile, where’s the Radiohead? Where’s Rufus Wainright and the Strokes and Razorlight and Arcade Fire? Four Scissor Sisters albums and _McFly_? Really?

It’s beyond mad. He stares at the track list (most of which he hasn’t even heard of) until someone taps the pile of papers he’s pretending to examine.

“And what’re you doing, hidden away back here?”

Sam sweeps the iPod guiltily into his lap. “Hey. Annie, hi.”

She smiles beatifically. “Hello.” Then when he doesn’t answer: “So? Anything I can do to help?”

“No. It’s nothing. Really. I’m just... going over some old files for the… case.”

“Which case?”

“You know. The Williams case,” Sam says, because there’s usually a Williams case on the go somewhere.

“ _Tyler_ ,” Gene bellows from across the room. “Stop pissing about just because you’ve found someone willing to shag you. Are we supposed to be finding a killer today, or would you rather discuss wedding arrangements with Cartwright? Car. Now.”

“Actually, Hunt,” Sam says pointedly. “We were discussing the case.”

“Rubbish. I can hear the sound of church bells from here. If you want my advice, take the chicken and make sure there’s a free bar. Now, if you wouldn’t mind: _get in the bloody car._ ”

Sam rolls his eyes. He kisses Annie lightly and heads off for another fight with his DCI.

He tries to forget about the iPod, but the next year another package is waiting for him outside his door. This time it contains classic children’s television (early nineteen eighties to late 2030) on a disc that looks like a DVD but which clearly isn’t, and a player, which the accompanying note claims will work with his 70s telly. Bizarrely, this proves the case, and, on his day off Sam watches a complete series of Pingu, more out of disbelief than anything. Then he gives in and digs the iPod out from under his socks. He listens to the Scissor Sister’s first album, skipping over track three, and finds himself quite enjoying it. Clearly, Sam thinks, _logically_ , his brain must be addled after the lengthy coma and his subsequent death. That’s enough to leave anyone unsure about their musical leanings. Still, it’s worrying.

Another year passes and, on Christmas Eve, Sam stakes out his own front door. He feels vaguely idiotic, like a child waiting up to catch Father Christmas, but when all’s said and done he’s a copper and the stake out is not only reasonable, but in a convenient location.

At about four in the morning, a youngish guy, with a ridiculous hair cut that makes him look like he’s been electrocuted, ambles down the corridor with his hands in his pockets. It’s clear, even though there’s no sign of a Christmas present, that this is the man Sam has been waiting for. He knows this firstly, because everyone else in the building has been asleep for the last three hours, and secondly, because no facet of the man’s appearance belongs in this decade. It’s almost as if he expects people to remember him anyway, and has decided, therefore, to abandon the idea of trying to fit in. Come to think of it, he does look vaguely familiar. He looks like… someone familiar.

Well, that can wait. It’ll come to him.

Sam waits the regulation thirty seconds after the mark has left the corridor, before opening the door silently. He pushes the present (which is shoebox shaped and surely too large to have been concealed in those pockets) back into his flat, locks the door and walks after the man. Besides the windows, there is only one exit from the building, so there is no chance of losing him. Sam jogs gently down the stairs and into the main lobby ready to confront this obnoxious figment of his imagination, but the lobby is empty. There is a faint whirring, which grows still fainter as he strides towards the main doors and gives them a firm shake. They have been locked for the night and have been, unless he misses his guess, since twelve. Bill, the doorman, is asleep as usual and has clearly not seen anything. The pastel coloured notices advertising bingo clubs and missing dogs flap in a remembered breeze. At no point does Sam consider the possibility that the Doctor has escaped through a window. He has vanished.

“ _Bastard_ ,” Sam says with disbelief.

The shoebox shaped present turns out to contain a shoebox, which in turn contains two very expensive, very shiny, very black shoes. Sam knows without trying them on that they will fit him perfectly. He also knows that he won’t be trying them on any time soon, and the man who delivered them is called the Doctor, though he doesn't know how he knows this.

He waits another year and, this time, as soon as the Doctor appears, Sam pulls the door open. “So, enjoying another day trip to the seventies?”

“Ah,” the Doctor says, looking a bit guilty. “Sam. Right. Yes. Hello.”

Sam glares at him. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“… Just,” the Doctor says, “you know, passing through, as you do. Fantastic building, really very interesting decor. Anyway, thought I’d drop off a Christmas present for you whilst I,” he pauses and then changes conversational track abruptly. “Sorry, but do you know who I am?”

“You’re the Doctor,” Sam says.

“Ah,” the Doctor says again. This time he looks distinctly worried. “Yes, I am. That could be a problem. Do you know anything else? Any idea where I live, for example?”

“...Gallifrey."

“And where’s that? Ireland?”

Sam frowns. “Yes. Isn’t it?”

“Course it is,” the Doctor says. “That’s me. Irish till I die. Just... make sure you tell me if you remember anything else, OK?”

“How?” Sam says. “And why should I? Who are you?”

The Doctor dismisses the question with a wave of his hand. “Try not to think about that. Anyway, look what I got you-”

He breaks off as Sam slams him hard into the wall.

“Listen,” Sam says, speaking slowly to make sure the Doctor does actually listen to him this time. “I died. I jumped off a building and now I’m here and its 1976. To be honest, that’s fine with me. At least it was, until you showed up, dropping off your iPods and DVDs and walking around in your knock-off converse.”

“ _Knock off converse?_ ” the Doctor says, apparently scandalised. “These are genuine-”

Sam gives him another thump against the wall and the Doctor shuts up again. “I don’t even care if this isn’t real any more. I just want it to make sense. So why don't you tell me what's going on. Either this is 1976 or it isn’t. Which is it?"

“Sam,” the Doctor says gently, prising Sam’s fingers from the collar of his suit. “I’m sorry, but I really can’t tell you anything you haven't already guessed. But," he says quickly, when Sam raises his eyebrows and a fist, " _but_ I can tell you that you’re not dead. Well, not any more.”

“What are you on about? _Not any more_?”

“Try not to think about that either. But this is 1976. These people are just as real as my converse. Which is very real.”

Sam glares. "Even leaving the vital issue of your converse aside for the moment, that's bullshit. I was seven in 1976; I was _born_ in 1969."

"Actually," the Doctor says, "you weren't, but you should probably try not to think about that either."

"And then, three years ago," Sam continues firmly, "I woke up again in a hospital bed in 2006.”

“Did you?” the Doctor says. "Hmm. Well, ignore that. That was just him trying to con you into giving up on this. It’s a bit of a cheap trick, but I did the same when I was-” he reconsiders and corrects himself, “not that it was a trick when I did it, but it’s something we can do. Visions and… things. Anyway, I really should go and I won't be back, I promise. Obviously, I can see it's awkward for you, what with the... never mind. For now though,” he produces another unfeasibly large present from one of his coat pockets, "I brought this so you might as well take it. Happy Christmas.”

“Great. Thanks,” Sam says. He turns the present over without opening it and then looks up at the Doctor. "What is it? The complete works of someone I hate? Sorry," he says when the Doctor looks rather baffled, "but you’re rubbish at presents. I can’t stand the Scissor Sisters.”

“Really?” the Doctor says. “That's odd. Not the me being bad at presents, which is probably true, just the you not liking the Scissor Sisters. To be fair though, the presents aren’t really for you.”

Sam stares at him. “Then why- Forget it. This is something else I shouldn’t think about too much, isn't it?”

“Good to see you're getting the hang of things," the Doctor says, cheerfully. He pulls a mobile phone from his pockets and throws it to Sam. “Oh, and you’d better take this. Call me, if you remember the number. I won’t change it.”

He looks like he wants to say something else, but, in the end, he just grins boyishly and holds out his hand. “Good to meet you, Sam Tyler.”

“How I _wish_ I could say the same,” Sam says, but he shakes the proffered hand nonetheless.

“I’ll try not to take that personally,” the Doctor says. He smiles, waves slightly and strides off back down the corridor. Sam considers following him, but there really isn’t any point, so he goes back into his flat and closes the door.

***

Approximately sixteen years later and eighty eight years before, the Doctor’s phone starts ringing rather embarrassingly during a light lunch at the Savoy with Oscar Wilde.

“ _Twenty years_ ,” the Master says when the Doctor answers. “Twenty years stuck on Earth in the twentieth century as a human. How could you? Aren't you supposed to be the moral one?”

The Doctor grins broadly. “I thought you liked the twentieth century."

“I liked the twenty- _first_ century,” the Master says, sourly. “It’s 1993 here and everyone’s busy being stuck up their own arses and wearing jackets with enormous shoulders. Frankly, if that was what I was looking for from life I would have stayed on Gallifrey. Speaking of that quaint Irish town, how is old Gallifrey doing these days? Still missing from space and time?”

“Apparently."

“And the Time Lords?”

“Still dead.”

“Well then,” the Master says. “I suppose, you’d better come and get me.”

And so the Doctor does. After all, it is Christmas.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Human Again [Podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5769745) by [podlizzie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/podlizzie/pseuds/podlizzie)




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